ACL compiles a daily media monitoring service of stories of interest to the Christian constituency relating to children, family, drugs and alcohol, marriage, human rights, religious freedom etc. Visit the ACL’s website each day to see what’s of interest in the news. Please note that selection of the articles does not represent ACL endorsement of the content.

Prayers are answered and the time and manner in which they are, undoubtedly, are not always what we want or expect, as I talked about recently in the article about the closing of the abortion clinic where Abby Johnson worked.

More Australian's are falling victim to financial stress, with a record number entering debt agreements during the 2012-13 financial year. Just under 10,000 people filed debt agreements in the 12 months to June 30, up nearly eight per cent on this time last year. It comes as the overall number of people filing for personal insolvency - which also includes bankruptcy - dropped two per cent to a total of 30,822 people across Australia.

A teenager was found hanged at her home after suffering months of bullying on a notorious website. Hannah Smith, 14, was taunted on Ask.fm – linked to at least four teenage deaths in the past year – over her weight, the death of an uncle and an apparent propensity to self-harm.

Drunks should pay for the damage they cause and the resources they use, the NSW auditor-general says. Alcohol abuse is "like a parasite drawing the lifeblood out of government services", Peter Achterstraat said in a report handed down on Tuesday.

Conservationists opposed to mining in Tasmania's Tarkine have been dealt a second blow in a week, with another large resource project in the region winning federal approval. Venture Minerals on Monday was granted permission to proceed with its Riley Creek iron ore proposal in north-western Tasmania. Environment Minister Mark Butler says the mine will operate for two years, subject to strict conditions.

Australia has seen several casino proposals in the last year with the latest being a $4.2 billion Macau-inspired resort and casino for Northern Queensland. Chinese billionaire Tony Fung is behind the project which, if approved, will be known as the Aquis Great Barrier Reef Resort.

Some people believe that if a person is going to kill themselves, there's nothing one can do. If you try to stop them, they'll just bide their time and do it later. Suicide is a major worldwide epidemic taking the lives of more than one million people a year, according to the World Health Organisation. Estimates suggest that 10 to 20 times more individuals attempt suicide. Self-harm now takes more lives than war, murder, and natural disasters combined.

If the Federal Government is serious about halving homelessness by 2020, Australia needs to get cracking says Susan Wilson from Anglicare Victoria as part of Homeless Persons Week. It’s nearly six years since PM Kevin Rudd pledged to halve homelessness by 2020.

Many Syrians who have escaped their country are now desperate to escape from U.N.-run refugee camps, where women are not safe and teenage boys are recruited as soldiers to fight in the conflict, according to an internal U.N. report. The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR is trying to cope with a massive humanitarian crisis, as 1.9 million Syrians have sought refuge abroad, mainly in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

The anti-gay marriage lobby will email 100,000 people the views of their local candidates on marriage in the lead-up to the election. The Australian Christian Lobby's Managing Director Lyle Shelton said he had emailed ALP and Coalition candidates and as many minor party candidates as possible seeking their views.

The UN's World Food Program says it has begun distributing 460 tonnes of maize to victims of major floods in North Korea that have killed more than 30 people. The aid is aimed at addressing the "immediate food needs" of around 38,000 people living in areas of serious crop devastation, the WFP said in a statement.

The federal coalition is demanding Labor match its promise not do any "squalid deals" with the Greens in the event of a hung parliament. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and shadow treasurer Joe Hockey have seized on differences between Treasurer Chris Bowen's comments about minority government on Monday and what he wrote in a book about Labor's future published in July.

The recent upheaval in Egypt once again brings to the forefront the plight of the country's Christians who have come under increased attack from Islamists since the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi. Now they're hoping and praying Egypt's next government will do a better job of protecting them from attacks and the trafficking of Christian girls.

According to the Assyrian International News Agency (www.aina.org), Assyrian Christians who have fled from an area of Syria called al-Thawrah (also known as al-Tabqah), have been told by rebels, “If you want to come back, convert to Islam, or you will be killed.”

A victim of a paedophile who used her to produce pornography has told a court of the paranoia, anxiety and mistrust she still suffers after being betrayed by someone she thought of as her “dearest friend”. Navin Edwin, 33, is being sentenced in the ACT Supreme Court for a series of offences against a number of girls over an extended period of time. Those charges include producing and possessing child pornography, acts of indecency, and child grooming.

If a terror attack were to occur tomorrow and the perpetrators were found citing Islam as their prime motivator for the crime, the first response from our political leaders has become all to predicable. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg began the trend in his response to the September 11th attacks and almost without exception it has been repeated ever since, with British Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnston the latest exponents following the recent knife attack in the streets on London - This trend is to thoroughly deny the obvious nature of the atrocities.